Overseas buyers grab cheap Queensland farmland

A Chinese buyer has swooped on the south-west Queensland cropping ­property Undabri for $30 million from receivers Deloitte.

The deal ends a competitive sales campaign which The Australian ­Financial Review can reveal involved an earlier, but failed, contract to separate Chinese group Union Agriculture, a wholly owned subsidiary of ­Hebei-based Jiahe Brewery.

Following Union Agriculture’s attempt, former PrimeAg Australia chief ­executive
Peter Corish
then started sounding out investors for a new $50 million rural land venture which would include Undabri as the main seed property.

Deloitte partner John Greig ­confirmed the sale of Undabri had taken place.

“It is an offshore buyer and a deposit has been paid," Mr Greig said.

“There are some minor conditions to be satisfied but we are very confident the transaction will settle."

Undabri was formerly owned by real estate and agricultural land identity Craig Doyle, but was placed on the ­market after Mr Doyle had several of his companies placed into receivership last year because of high debts and flooding.

National Australia Bank appointed Deloitte receivers in April last year.

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The 11,935-hectare property, 30 kilometres north of Goondiwindi, has been on and off the market with expectations it, and other aggregated properties, could sell for a combined $50 million.

Undabri has 1100 hectares of ­irrigated land with about 2400 hectares of dry cultivation and 6000 hectares of grazing area. There is a water storage capacity of about 3000 megalitres.

The property has a livestock capacity of 3000 head of cattle and there is potential for a 10,000-head feedlot.

Elders Queensland state managers John Burke and Clayton Smith were marketing Undabri but declined to comment on the sale. Last year, the neighbouring property, Mobandilla, was purchased for about $12 million.

Undabri’s new Chinese buyer will join the growing list of Chinese buyers who have snapped up cheap ­agricultural land in Australia.